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Comment by throwaway4PP | Hacker News Reader

I love the note regarding the rearview mirror being an actual, you know, mirror.

A friend was teasing me the other day for using my mirrors while I backed up, ignoring the various screens and camera feeds dotting the dash. I reminded him that photons impinging my eyes reflected off the material world at the diffraction limit of the visible spectrum remain much higher fidelity than some shitty parts-bin screens.

Plus those rearview screens are always horribly bright. You know what has infinite levels of dynamic brightness? Light bouncing off a planar reflector.

So much of modern cars is cost savings and poor design decisions dressed up in the name of modern - but ultimately resulting in UX worse than an early 2000s Honda.

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Cameras are infinitely more useful for backing up and parking. Not being able to use them is actually a skill issue.

People that only use their rear view cameras scare me. Move your head, be aware of your environment and the people (kids) around you. And use your cameras (again, kids).

Sometimes I sit in a coffee shop and very often see people just using their side mirrors (no rear cam, not looking back) ... scary.

Modern cameras give a way better view of what's behind and to the side of the car than you can ever achieve through mirrors. There's really no comparison. Yes, if you're comparing to older, inferior camera systems mirrors might be better, but not the modern ones.

I say this as someone who learned to drive and drove for a long time with no cameras. People saying this are just usually just used to mirrors and never bothered to take the time to learn to switch to the cameras for backwards maneuvering, or their cars just are not equiped with the latest tech.

And the camera's have been better for over a decade at thing point. I have to imagine people are just willfully antagonistic to them for some reason. How in god's name are you going to see a kid directly behind you, below your trunk height, with your mirrors?

That was a typo/thinko on my part - I meant to say mirrors. I find it scary when people just look from side to side, perhaps looking in the rear-view mirror, but not ever turning their head. This happens WAY more than you'd expect it to.

Using the rear-view cam in this context is definitely a lot safer (esp for kids!), though you really should also look around as well, the side mirrors are more for driving, not parking-lot type situations, and have a really limited field of view.

Sorry I meant to say their mirrors - but rear view cams do not give much in the way of peripheral vision (yes, I have modern cars too). I've regularly had dumb people cross right into my rearward path even though I'm currently backing up, have the white lights on, etc.

What I meant was: people backing up just using their side/rear mirrors are scary. They don't have good spatial awareness of what's around them. A rear-view cam for them adds a whole lot of safety though.

Cameras are not a suitable replacement for rear-vision mirrors for the same reason that screens are not a suitable replacement. It’s even addressed in TFA: focal length.

>>> But more importantly, current screen technology requires the driver to focus on the surface of the screen itself, which is mere feet away from their eyes. This is a large change in focal distance from looking at the road ahead.

If you’re over the age of 40 or so, it takes time, a few hundred milliseconds at least, to refocus your gaze distance. A screen is near. When driving, you’re looking far. A mirror is something to glance at.

I test-drove a Polestar with a screen for a rear-vision mirror (and no actual rear window) and it was completely undrivable for me. It takes longer for my eyes to refocus on the near distance than I feel comfortable removing my gaze from the road ahead. I turned around after 10 minutes and returned it to the lot.

I never said mirrors should be replaced.

Also, this conversation is about backing up and parking (read what I said). When backing up you are mostly looking backwards only, so the focal length adjustment point is moot. Even if you have to switch to looking forwards, this is at low speeds / standing still, so it doesn't make a difference.

I'll restate my point with emphasis because you seem to not have read it: Cameras are infinitely more useful for backing up and parking.

And I totally agree, but I still use mirrors because when I need to pass and park next to a pillar (my garage has a few) I can never tell how far I actually am from it through the cameras, whereas the mirror will tell me without lag and with absolute precision whether I'm about to scrape my car or not. Not to mention that it's very difficult to tell depth from cameras, which is what I need the most when the back axle has passed the pillar and I should start turning in very tight spaces.

friend was teasing me the other day for using my mirrors while I backed up

Good way to fail a drivers' test in a lot of places.

Thankfully you only have to do those once, not every time you drive.

I agree about many screens being commonly too bright, but not really about anything else. My partner's previous company car had a back-up camera with a fine brightness and the current one has none at all. I feel blind backing out of parking spots in this one: such cameras physically sit in spots where it can see things that a driver can never see, from approaching cars to either side (when your view is blocked) to a child walking by just as I am ready to start backing out

I don't remember having this issue in the past (we didn't have cameras in driving school), not sure why. My current approach is to stretch and strain a bunch more, start rolling verry slowly when I think the coast is clear and double check that nothing reveals itself, and then just hope for the best. If someone fell back there while I wasn't yet watching, it's simply tough luck I guess? Don't see a physically other option than, ehh, I dunno, adding a camera with a corresponding screen! ;)

> photons impinging my eyes reflected off the material world at the diffraction limit of the visible spectrum remain much higher fidelity than some shitty parts-bin screens

Consider that the camera can be ~2 meters closer than you are to the target, and/or have more pixels than you can see but that the alert system still uses, so I don't know about this diffraction limit fancy wording trying to put yourself above machines which can, in general, do so many things humans cannot

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